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UNLEASHTHEFURY8 t1_j0ufb6m wrote

Wonder how much they made off children using their parents' credit cards?

Billions, probably.

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passinghere t1_j0uguw2 wrote

As with the wealthy any fines always seems to be far less than they made doing whatever they get caught / fined for, so it's always written off as a cost of doing business and they still result in a profit after paying the fine so they don't care that much.

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LoserMotron t1_j0wqfnu wrote

Yeh that's the issue. Fines should be 1.1x profit or something

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nostalgic_dragon t1_j0umzaq wrote

So the article starts out with saying that Epic are the creators of rocket league, which is wrong and off to a bad start. Reading the article I'm wondering how illegal the practices were compared to what companies do all the time. I'm not trying to what aboutism this, but the collecting data from children fine seems dumb, because children lie about their age online all the time. Then that data is collected. The article doesn't specify that the users were known to be children and still had data collected, just that they collected the data and their data deletion requests were a pain to deal with. The article also mentioned Google had the second highest fine for YouTube data collection of children.

For the other claim I can't speak to since I've played a single match of Fortnite, but non confirming purchases is annoying as hell, but also very common. It should be removed from all products, especially if purchases were able to occur even on loading screens. Now, parents could choose to not have credit cards attached to a child account and could also use parental locks on consoles the require a code to buy stuff, but that puts too much parenting onto the parent.

People love to hate on epic and Fortnite because it is popular, but they've honestly been good for the industry standards when it comes to micro transactions. There are a lot of predatory games out there, even rocket league changed its loot box garbage when epic was buying them. That's not saying they are moral or perfect, but I'd rather their practices than roblox and the tons of other free to play garbage out there.

Edit: The FTC report is much better than this article. Can be found here.

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ichewyou t1_j0v0jur wrote

Thanks for posting the FTC report. Definitely worth the read.

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Orongorongorongo t1_j0vit3x wrote

>Epic employees expressed concern about its default settings. As early as 2017, Epic employees urged the company to change the default settings to require users to opt in for voice chat, citing concern about the impact on children in particular. Despite this and reports that children had been harassed, including sexually, while playing the game, the company resisted turning off the default settings. And while it eventually added a button allowing users to turn voice chat off, Epic made it difficult for users to find, according to the complaint.

I wonder why on earth Epic resisted making voice chat opt in for children? It seems a no-brainer. I must be missing something obvious.

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Heartable t1_j0vl48g wrote

Gonna guess that voice chat helps players get hooked into the game.

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Orongorongorongo t1_j0vm5pe wrote

Hmmm yeah. More hooked = more in game purchases. Morals and ethics aside, it seems so risky from a business point of view.

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linguotgr t1_j0xohgx wrote

One of the key points of that Fishing for Whales presentation from however many years ago was that harassment is profitable, because in a freemium economy the people using default skins can be browbeaten in to making skin purchases to avoid that harassment. I have very little doubt that part of the reason they wanted voice chat on for everyone was so that everyone would be able to push each other in to more sales.

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erosram t1_j0vlqw5 wrote

Probably felt it was integral to the experience.

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Light_Error t1_j0v5fng wrote

I dunno, I have heard good things about Fortnite’s battle pass. But if it is anything like Overwatch and lootboxes, people will take what was a decent system and morph it into something terrible. I’ve heard nothing but bad about OW 2’s system. Halo: Infinite is better with no time restrictions but few desired rewards. And this is only the first go around. Hopefully I am wrong, but I have not seen it go any other way in the past decade.

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Agreeable-Display-77 t1_j0xim36 wrote

Wish all of you would stop buying the additional trash. Believe it or not. Companies used to only have map packs to make money off of. It made them step it up on making awesome game modes that people wanted to play for a long time. They needed people to buy copies, and then maps later. Sometimes they even gave map packs free to bring more people in. Madden had Squads with regular team ranked mode. Could name your squad and everything. Halo used to bring out new maps constantly. Many for free. It was awesome. Let them make their $69 or $59 and thats it. We dont want game modes that need spending money to be competitive, and we dont need skins. We need good games.

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Light_Error t1_j0xm7rp wrote

I don’t buy lootboxes or anything. My point was that something that can seem benign in one company’s hand, like Fortnite in OP’s post, can be taken to greater extremes than thought before. I saw it happen to both the app stores and games over a decade plus. There are degrees of badness that can be discussed while still agreeing they shouldn’t be there. I am with you though on the wish for games to have less ways to spend. The only stuff I ever buy is stuff that’d be equivalent to expansion packs on PC back in the day.

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noideaman t1_j0wofav wrote

Ohhhh, part 3 of the Illegal Dark Patterns section states that Epic would ban accounts for chargebacks, preventing access to the user’s purchased content. They also warned users that their accounts would be permanently banned if they did another chargeback. They were fined, in part, for those actions.

Blizzard does the same thing. They ban your account for chargebacks. IF you’re able to convince them to unban you, they tell you that future chargebacks will result in a permanent ban.

This ruling sets the precedent that this is NOT ok. It’s an illegal, anti-consumer practice that will result in enforcement actions taking place.

Great news from the FTC!

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Arnorien16S t1_j0xiah3 wrote

All companies does this actually. That is the norm.

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abbrakapokus t1_j0z3091 wrote

No, it’s definitely not the norm to be threatened to be banned from a store/place of business for making a return on your purchase.

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Arnorien16S t1_j0zdt0q wrote

Sorry I misspoke. It is the case in gaming stores really. Steam, Ubisoft Store, Epic everywhere it is almost guaranteed a ban. Though they do have a refund policy and sometimes it does make sense ... You can finish some videogames in a week or two and then chargeback.

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ImPattMan t1_j0ukcim wrote

A mere slap on the wrist for them.

"Oh well, off to commit more crimes!" -Epic, probably

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jscannicchio t1_j0uumfp wrote

Microsoft buys Activision/Blizzard

Facebook creates the metaverse

It's like video games are the unregulated corporate access to data for humans 13 and under....

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Classy_Shadow t1_j0veimz wrote

Lmao, you think Microsoft needed them to get that data? Lol

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cat_prophecy t1_j0x0zp9 wrote

They’re unregulated because the majority of lawmakers are still thinking that kids spend too much time on that newfangled Atari.

The average age of senators is in the sixties. 30 years ago, when they were first joining politics, video games were still very much for children and slim few have ever worked past that.

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heybart t1_j0vamcx wrote

I don't care how big the industry is, that is serious money. I'm sure it'll be appealed to death. Usually the govt slaps on some puny fine like 2M and the company just laughs it off as cost of doing business

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kylorensgrandfather t1_j0w6l0p wrote

If it’s less then they made from exploiting children then they’ll do it again

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NotSure___ t1_j0wt1mz wrote

It is but still it's something that they can pay without many issues. My understanding is that they are asked to make some changes as well.

Just to give an idea, Fornite revenue - 2021 - 5.8 Billion, 2020 - 5.1 Billion, 2019 - 3.7 Billion, 2018 - 5.4 Billion .

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Daedelous2k t1_j0w6aox wrote

Imagine part of the reason they wanted their own payment method was to make it harder for people to get refunds.

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damianTechPM t1_j0v6gb0 wrote

Hmm maybe that's why the free daily games this year are garbage compared to last.

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rexferramenta t1_j0vazis wrote

If the stuff is free you're the product.

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ThrasherX9 t1_j0vnip7 wrote

Wish they’d make another game not aimed at children. Just another game really. Anything besides more Fortnite.

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SadcoreEmpire168 t1_j0woeog wrote

And yet Epic still has an ongoing legal battle with Apple over antitrust/monopoly claims. That will age well soon enough

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x0rn t1_j0wbxma wrote

How much goes back to the victims?

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Vunien t1_j0wo57r wrote

"Epic also agreed to pay $245 million to refund consumers over accusations that it used manipulative online practices to trick players of all ages into making unintended purchases."

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[deleted] t1_j0x1qxs wrote

Slap on wrist… bullshit.

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kaikoda t1_j0xurh7 wrote

Strange. I juuust today uninstalled epic games because I had a suspicion that there may be bitmining in the app. The only thought given the slow booting and just general resource heavy need for the program. I’m not saying there is actual bitmining it could just be chunky code or something?

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drawkbox t1_j0wntzy wrote

COPPA rules are very clear, no one else is sweating.

> Rule Summary

> COPPA imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age, and on operators of other websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information online from a child under 13 years of age.

These rules have been in place since the year 2000.

> In December 2012, the Federal Trade Commission issued revisions effective July 1, 2013, which created additional parental notice and consent requirements, amended definitions, and added other obligations for organizations that (1) operate a website or online service that is "directed to children" under 13 and that collects "personal information" from users or (2) knowingly collects personal information from people under 13 through a website or online service. After July 1, 2013, operators must:

> - Post a clear and comprehensive online privacy policy describing their information practices for personal information collected online from persons under age 13;

> - Make reasonable efforts (taking into account available technology) to provide direct notice to parents of the operator's practices with regard to the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information from persons under 13, including notice of any material change to such practices to which the parents have previously consented;

> - Obtain verifiable parental consent, with limited exceptions, prior to any collection, use, and/or disclosure of personal information from persons under age 13;

> - Provide a reasonable means for a parent to review the personal information collected from their child and to refuse to permit its further use or maintenance;

> - Establish and maintain reasonable procedures to protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the personal information collected from children under age 13, including by taking reasonable steps to disclose/release such personal information only to parties capable of maintaining its confidentiality and security; and

> - Retain personal information collected online from a child for only as long as is necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected and delete the information using reasonable measures to protect against its unauthorized access or use.

> - Operators are prohibited from conditioning a child's participation in an online activity on the child providing more information than is reasonably necessary to participate in that activity.

Epic just was cheating trying to get more info on kids like TikTok for tracking/fingerprinting.

The COPPA rules are basically this, over 13, ok, under 13, you can collect no data on these users other than anon + ephemeral data. Should they want to buy anything or have anything beyond that, you have to have their parents approve via email and the child's account is essentially their parent.

If you use systems like Apple GameCenter, Google Play Game Services, Steam or other, all of this is already built in.

Epic Games clearly was cheating or didn't have their flows tight on this.

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LordSoren t1_j0vhv0d wrote

Guess I'm going to have to request a refund on all my epic games...

33 games, total spent... $0. Guess not.

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